‘Only Murders In The Building’ Boss John Hoffman Details Meryl Streep & Melissa McCarthy On-Screen Fight; Season 1 Plot Holes—Deadline Q&A
Spoiler Alert: The following reveals major plot points from episode 7 of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building titled “Valle of the Dolls.”
If anyone had told Only Murders in the Building co-creator John Hoffman he’d have Meryl Streep and Melissa McCarthy in a full-on girl fight on the series, he’d have never believed you.
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The thought itself sounds totally bonkers but it actually happens in this week’s new episode titled “Valley of the Dolls,” currently available to stream via Hulu. Streep’s Loretta Durkin and McCarthy’s character Doreen, Charles’ (Steve Martin) sister, duke it out in the suburbs as the latter is distressed her advances on Oliver (Martin Short) aren’t working because the former showed up unannounced.
As Hoffman tells Deadline, the epic tumble was originally meant to play out with stunt people but the seasoned actresses wanted to do it themselves, pigtails flying and all. More on this, the creepy dolls and how irresistible Oliver is in our Q&A below.
Meryl Streep and Martin Short share a laugh with John Hoffman on set of episode 7 of Only Murders in the Building.
DEADLINE: You guys kept Melissa McCarthy’s role very quiet for it to be revealed hilariously in episode 7. How did her casting come about and did you always know you wanted her to play Charles’ sister?
JOHN HOFFMAN: Melissa has been on the wish list for this show for quite a while. We’ve tried, in many ways, to have her be a part of it over the various seasons but this season, and rather late, it came to me, “Oh my God, it’s Charles’s baby sister.” We had a big talk a couple of weeks before we were shooting it, and it was one of those great conversations where I was on the phone pitching her the character. I said, “Well, okay, so you play a character named Doreen.” And she said, “I’m in.” Then I said, “You have a collection of dolls…” And then Melissa asked, “Are you talking about me or the character?” And I said, “Oh, the character.” She said, “Because you could also be talking about me.” I was like, “Oh my God, okay.”
It was then that I shared with her that about 5 years ago I’d seen her very early at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. I saw her at around 7 a.m., not knowing her very well at the time, and she was in a kiosk looking at these very creepy Barbie dolls—they were naked, I think. I wondered if she was considering buying the creepy collection. I wasn’t sure what was happening so I moved it along. After I told her, she said she totally bought those dolls for her collection. She said, “This is the greatest conversation I’ve ever had about any character ever.” To watch her fulfill in the way she did was just a knockout.
DEADLINE: She’s such a funny person, that her mere mention of the word “podcast” made me crack up. What was it like with her on set?
JH: That was all her! Every time she said podcast, we were all laughing. That was one of the moments where you can imagine me at the monitor; I’ve never laughed so hard throughout the entire thing. The shoot of this episode was like a miracle of comedy for me.
DEADLINE: Okay, Melissa and Meryl’s blowout fight. What went down on set that day?
JH: It was all them, that was the shocker. We had stunt doubles in a season of stunt doubles. We had to have them on our set that day. So our brilliant stunt coordinator, Chris Barnes, put together a whole version of the fight in the living room with a couple of [stunt] women for Meryl and Melissa to follow the path of. I will never forget—and here’s your big scoop— when I called for Meryl and Melissa to come over to see what the stunt women put together they both nodded. After watching, they looked at each other and said, “Yeah, it’s very good but we want to go way further.”
So they took it upon themselves to explode that scene and started working it out together. Each thing they did and each thing they added, I was like, “Wait a minute. You know, we’re going to have to do this several times. Are you sure? And Meryl, you’re going to flip your head on this couch as you go over several times. What are we doing?” They were the most game I’ve ever seen anybody. They were delighted with each other in making that challenge work. They hit it out of the park each time we shot that thing. I closed my eyes, Rosy. I was like, “I can’t watch this.”
DEADLINE: So the stunt women never got a lick in?
JH: There was one round after [Meryl and Melissa] did it, I think it was three times through that they did it, then the stunt women came in for a couple of shots just in case. I think maybe one is in the cut, but otherwise, it is all [Meryl and Melissa] the whole time. And I swear, I got so nervous when we got to that third time through, I was like, I can’t watch it. If something happens to any of these women in this crazy thing they’re doing, I’m never going to forgive myself.
DEADLINE: Did you guys use stunt pigtails? I was so worried about how they were flying about.
JH: [Laughs] And all the slapping with those pigtails!
DEADLINE: Oliver is the luckiest guy on Earth, having these two women vying for his attention and affection. What’s his secret?
JH: What I love about this show is that you see these people that the whole world has grown up with, well, depending on which generation you’re from. It’s so sweet to see Marty, who is known for playing some pretty ridiculous characters like Jiminy Glick…
DEADLINE: Ed Grimley!
JH: Yes, Ed Grimley. I’m not going to say they’re the most attractive, magnetic people that romantically might be at the center of a pair of women like that. But the beauty of Marty and the work he’s doing as Oliver in this show is comical, tragic, and poignant in many ways, and funny as hell. I think it’s the greatest work I’ve ever seen him do. Anyone I’ve talked to is always like, “I’m in love with that Oliver Putnam.” So it makes perfect sense to me. Plus, have you seen the head of hair on that guy?
DEADLINE: The fight wasn’t even the biggest moment of the episode. Loretta and Oliver get engaged!
JH: Wasn’t that the sweetest? I’ll tell you one of my favorite parts of that proposal beyond just that Loretta proposes, is Meryl offering that up in that moment. I love it. The scene starts with her saying, “So I fought a woman and I won,” and she’s so proud. That proposal happened, and it was Marty Short who added, and he doesn’t often do this, the line before “I accept,” “Is there any family money?” It got the most beautiful, genuine reaction, and was just the sweetest thing.
DEADLINE: Don’t you think a wedding is a great occasion for murder or discovering a murderer?
JH: Wow. Now you’re making me wonder about things that we’ve done.
DEADLINE: Speaking of the things you’ve done, what’s going on with this new layer of Season 1 plotholes?
JH: Here’s what I know: when we do these sort of narratives with the writer’s room, it’s a really complicated show to write which murder mysteries generally are. But the fun of this is you will always have a collection of things like, they were going down a path but then it turns out to be nothing, or it might not make sense. So where are the things? And at the end of Season 1, Mabel [Selena Gomez] is on the roof and says, “There’s just a few loose ends.” These are the things we all recognize as writers, so we’ve collected up a bunch of these through the seasons. I will only say that pointing up certain things from Season 1 felt very exciting because I think a lot of our fans have made lists of some of these loose ends and we want to answer some in full or in part this season. I loved watching the trio crack that.
DEADLINE: With these plot holes, could we see some familiar Season 1 faces return?
JH: I think everything’s possible.
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